Are we at the beginning of the end of the fossil fuel era? Will they stop being extracted one day? This is the backdrop and one of the key axes of the negotiations at the imminent UN conference on climate change (COP28), which will be held in Dubai (United Arab Emirates) between November 30 (this Thursday) and December 12th. For almost two weeks, 70,000 delegates from 198 nations will try to define a response and the possibilities that remain to avoid warming above 1.5ºC (compared to the pre-industrial era), set as the first threshold in the Paris Agreement to avoid damage. catastrophic weather
The negotiation to activate the decline of fossil energy and how to finance the fund for losses and damages established) to urgently repair the climate damage will focus the major debates at the summit.
The meeting is preceded by UN reports warning that the planet is on track to suffer a warming of between 2.5 and 2.9ºC, due to the unstoppable increase in gas emissions, mostly produced by burning. of fossil energy (coal, gas and oil). King Charles III of Great Britain will be at the inauguration, but neither President Joe Biden nor his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping, will attend (although his special envoys will).
One of the central proposals of the negotiation is presented by the EU, in favor of adopting at the COP the agreement in favor of a "progressive elimination of the production and consumption of energy from fossil fuels." It also wants that this consumption "reach its maximum point in this decade” and that the peak of emissions is reached no later than 2025. If not, it is not feasible to achieve the goal of 1.5ºC.
On the other hand, other negotiating blocks (China or India) prefer to talk about “reduction” of fossil energy. A third way may open the way at the conference. It is the position of those countries that say they are in favor of the progressive elimination of fossil fuels but with the exception of those fuels or technologies whose emissions can be sequestered (and which, therefore, are prevented from being thrown into the atmosphere). .
With cryptic language, this position seeks its salvation in CO2 capture and storage technologies, systems tested in thermal plants and other hydrocarbon facilities that capture the gases before expelling them, burying them and neutralizing them, but whose effectiveness is disputed. .
Everything indicates that in Dubai, the United Arab Emirates will intensify its commitment to this formula with the support of the US.
“We have to capture the emissions or not produce them, one of the two things,” declared the special envoy for climate affairs John Kerry, to endorse this formula.
At this point, Valvanera Ulargui, director of the Spanish Climate Change Office, indicated that new renewable technologies are preferable, since “we cannot dedicate investments to technologies that have not proven to be a solution, that do not present a good cost-benefit balance. ", and that, in short, "they do not serve to reduce emissions."
Stopping warming at 1.5ºC (to prevent the most catastrophic effects of climate change) means having to reduce emissions by 43% by 2030 (compared to 2019). And, furthermore, we must act in the medium term, which is equivalent to pointing out the “way out” of fossil fuels towards the middle of the century (and reaching a peak in emissions in 2015).
However, governments plan by 2030 to increase fossil fuel extraction by double the amount that would be consistent with limiting warming to 1.5°C, according to the United Nations Production Gap report. for the Environment (UNEP). These plans lead to an increase in coal production until 2030, and oil and gas production until at least 2050.
A few weeks ago, the Minister for the Ecological Transition, Teresa Ribera, was in favor of establishing “that there should be no new exploration and exploitation of fossil fuels, and in particular, coal; and even less so if they do not have (carbon) capture systems to eliminate emissions.” She admitted that this consideration does not have the full support of the governments before the Dubai summit, but she judged this position will have the support of Spain and a large group of countries. The Spanish Climate Change law prohibits such explorations.
Javier Andaluz, from Ecologistas en Acción, maintains that the EU's position (regarding the elimination of fossil fuels) “is not at all clear, especially due to the position of Poland (a coal-dependent country), which has forced Spain to adopt a stance of mediation.” Environmental groups say an end to fossil extraction must be set before mid-century.
Meanwhile, there is no agreement to establish when gas emissions should reach their ceiling and then decline. However, “achieving that peak is the only way to not exceed the 1.5ºC warming threshold in the coming years,” recalls Marta Torres, researcher at the Institute of Sustainable Development and International Relations (Iddri), in Paris.
On the other hand, possible agreements to triple the installed power of renewable energies in 2030 and double energy efficiency by that date are gaining acceptance. Therefore, the energy transition is the “star” in Dubai.
“Achieving the 1.5ºC goal requires accelerating the energy transition. Fossil fuels are the big problem, we must replace them with renewable ones. This is the moment of truth. "Either we urgently change to renewables or we maintain the current energy model and we are heading for an increase in global temperature at the end of the century of around 3ºC," Gonzalo Sáenz de Miera, director of climate change and alliances of Iberdrola
The summit is chaired by Sultan Al Jaber, director of the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (Adnoc), the fourth largest oil and gas company in the world, so gestures from the sector are expected in the face of the avalanche of criticism towards the choice of this venue. . “The fossil fuel industry has to be part of the solution,” Simon Stiell, executive director of the UN Climate Change Convention, declared on Saturday in defending the choice of Dubai.
The NGOs, for their part, demand a regime of incompatibilities to avoid the massive presence of the interests of large producing companies in the official delegations of the countries.
At the conference, the typical tension will be repeated between countries that demand more gas reductions and others that ask for economic help in exchange. But this year there will be no promises to present new national contributions or climate action plans to the UN.
This is the first year since the Paris Agreement was signed in 2015 in which countries will take an official global stocktake of the progress they are making to address climate change. We know the answer; Not enough progress is being made in reducing emissions.
The review contained in this balance (one of the documents that will guide the discussion at the summit) is an opportunity (theoretically) to relaunch the action, since it should serve as a prior analysis before the countries present their new climate action plans in the year 2025. “It is about applying a correction and adjustment mechanism, to evaluate the action carried out and see how new actions can be taken,” says Marta Torres. Governments must present these plans every 5 years (with à la carte voluntary goals on gas reduction but with a scheduled list of actions to be undertaken).
The conference should evaluate the rich world's pledges on financing to address climate change mitigation and adaptation. In 2021 the figure reached 89.6 billion dollars (public and private resources). The promise of 100 billion by 2020 made at previous climate summits was not fulfilled. But estimates indicate that this figure would have been exceeded in 2022, according to the OECD.
“This funding is a drop in a sea of needs. The reform of the financial institutions of the World Bank and bilateral banks is increasingly important,” says Torres.
On the table are the proposals (forecast included in the Paris Agreement) to ask countries to divest from fossil fuels
Recently, in a meeting prior to the summit, the Minister for the Ecological Transition, Teresa Ribera, demanded that the large financial conglomerates be consistent with the energy transition, incorporate the needs to protect the climate in their decisions and stop financing investments in coal, gas and oil.
In Dubai, the EU will seek to tighten previous agreements to gradually eliminate inefficient fossil fuel subsidies, and set a deadline of 2030. It is something that was already agreed at COP26 in Glasgow; However, since then, global fossil fuel subsidies have increased by between $2 and $7 trillion, according to the International Monetary Fund. In fact, EU countries were among those that increased that support, mainly in response to fuel increases and energy security concerns following the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
